If REPARATIONS POISONED the relations among European countries, war debts did the same to the relations between the United States and its erstwhile associates, Britain and France. However hard the Americans tried to separate war debts from reparations, in the minds of most Europeans they remained inextricably linked. Indeed, in the middle of 1922, the British government made the connection explicit in a note drafted by Arthur Balfour, then acting foreign secretary, that Britain would collect no more on its loans to its Continental allies and on its share of reparations from Germany
